Instead of viewing budget private schools as illegitimate providers, policymakers must unleash the competitive market process and resulting innovations required to take Indian education into the 21stcentury.
Srijan Bandyopadhyay
Srijan has worked in the education and public policy space, and has a strong commitment to liberal ideas. He has worked for over 5 years with Centre for Civil Society, and recently compiled the Report on Budget Private Schools in India, 2017 which documented research, policy, practice and global trends relevant to the low-cost private school sector in India. He is a student of political philosophy and political economy, and is interested in classical liberalism, the history of liberalism in India, and the application of liberal principles to contemporary Indian political thought.
Budget private schools are chosen by parents for many reasons. A key one is the state of government schools.
Education is critical to India, and the government has failed in its mandate to provide quality schooling. Low-cost private schools have tried to fill that breach. This is the first in a series of three essays discussing that phenomenon.